User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left

@miantiao

I am sorry to hear that you are broke mate - this calls for some lateral thinking from the poddie community.  Something a little more ingenious than passing the hat (although I am sure that could be arranged too.)  Perhaps taking a big loan from a bank?  The bigger the better of course; they have a tendency to make you repay small loans.  You could teach English, or Chinese, or both.  Sell something? (This is China - there is a market for everything.) Cut back on expenses?  Do you really need the Jag? We would hate to see you disappear from these boards - CP needs a bit of colour (provided so ably by your front on silhouette of a man on a horse with helmet and gun).    

Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left

@cobbers, diggers

RJ - I too am impressed by your command of Aussie slang. These days such terms are delivered heavily laced with irony, or perhaps to address a small child, or used by old guys who are too drunk to realise that they are drunk - but I'm sure you knew that.  Our previous Prime Minister appropriated 'mate' for political purposes so that will never be the same.  In my experience it is immigrants who adopt these expressions most enthusiastically.  I had a chine* from Latvia who always called me chine - very touching it was.  

* chine = China, China plate, therefore 'mate' 

Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left

@zhenlijiang

Thanks for your response - now I think that is what I probably meant, rather learned.  But I have been saying the wrong thing; fortunately the sounds are reasonably close.  The taxi drivers probably think that I am speaking a weird 方言.  I have a lot of directions to give if I am feeling lazy because we live at the top of a steep hill: 往左拐 (into the 小区)，请开出上 (please drive in and up)，往左拐，右拐，右拐, 右拐. I need to learn how to ask them to change down a gear - they almost always stall the car.  Are they taught not to change down until the car stalls?      

Posted on: Turn Right, Turn Left

@John

can you say 转左拐.. or is that just plain wrong?  

Posted on: A Business Dinner with a Supplier

@tal,chanelle 

this point has probably been done to death but I just want to say again that the Internet did not slow down everywhere - the point that it might vary all over China is valid.  As I have posted before, while you guys were having trouble with speed there was no noticeable change out here.  Except for ChinesePod - the site became unusable for a while.  But other sites were zipping along as usual except for maybe one brief period I recall (yes - I was boring and stayed in town for eight days!)  Incidentally I have the standard 2 Gig speed, I am too tight to pay for the 4 Gig plan.   

Posted on: Drunk Driving

@changye

Thanks again for the figures and sources - I do take care crossing the road (but I still say that personally I have not seen many serious accidents - touch wood.)

Those licence holder figures are in a way amazing - it seems that many more people hold licences than own cars.  A friend explained tonight that regulations on getting driving licences have tightened in recent times and there was a rush of people getting licences ahead of the stricter requirements!  I am told by a licence holder here that it is both onerous and expensive in terms of lessons, but the actual driving test is painfully inadequate compared to what I am used to in Australia.  Tests here are still not done on the open road.   

Posted on: Drunk Driving

@changye

There are reasons why you would expect there to be relatively fewer road deaths in Japan from car accidents - safer cars, better roads?, shorter trips, possibly fewer trips by car (all measured on some meaningful yardstick like 'per capita' or 'per vehicle km travelled per capita per year'.)  There may be other reasons like those I mentioned in the Australian context (eg. driver education, RBT.)   

But it's difficult to interpret your data on fatalities PRC vs Japan - there are three different sets of numbers.  The first two don't say what they are.  If they are just totals they cannot be compared easily.  If the final set is 'per 100,000 cars and bikes' they would be one meaningful measure of fatalities (but I'm puzzled about how this relates to the previous figures).  It still doesn't give a reliable indication of for example 'safety on the roads' or 'risk of dying in a car accident'!  It might be that a lot more of total travel is done in cars and bikes in China, or that China does a greater proportion of travel on motorbikes than cars, or that China has significantly more roads per capita - all these things might need to be taken into account.  There is a saying: 'Lies. Damned lies. And Statistics'.  

Can you point us to the source of the info?  

The best kind of information is data collected for the purpose of cross-country comparison - quite often people are comparing quite different kinds of data - can be very misleading.    

@chantelle

That 'funny rule' applies in Australia for any accident where you expect there to be an insurance claim.  Things go much smoother if there is a police report. So you do get accidents holding up/ closing roads for hours, sometimes a whole day for a really bad accident.  Even when there is no insurance to claim in China the delays involve negotiations about compensation.    

Posted on: Drunk Driving

@ooka,pretzellogic

It is difficult to get objective data on this (but I would be very interested if anyone knows some sources...?)  I saw some data that is now about five or six years old - the fatality rate (per capita, per year) from road accidents in China is almost exactly the same as Australia.  Despite the fact that Aust spends huge amounts on road safety, driver education and testing, Random Breath Testing (in every police car), safety standards of cars are generally higher (Chinese cars rate at or near the bottom in Australian safety tests), and more active policing of road rules.  It is possible that Australians drive a lot faster on average, and speed kills.  Australia also has substantially more road surface per head of population - how this impacts on accidents I am not sure - without going into detail, these extra roads should actually reduce accidents.  The quality of road surface is also a factor - I would think that Aust also spends a lot more per capita on road surfacing.        

My impression is like that of pretzellogic - it is surprising how few accidents you see in China, in the cities I've lived in.  You expect more because of apparent disregard for road rules.  And even minor accidents look major because everyone stops to stare.  (I was wondering how you define a 'major' accident ooka?)  I think the best explanation is that Chinese drivers travel a lot slower on average than in the West (and a lot slower than in Korea.)  Also, private car ownership in China is still way below Australian rates (by at least a factor of ten in most cities) - so there is a lower proportion of 'amateurs' on the road in China (believe it or not.)    

Posted on: To Tip or Not to Tip

@davidfong

Expensive hotels and hotels on famous mountains either charge way over the odds or add the service charge you were referring to.  Does anyone know what happens to the 15% service charge at a Shangri-la Hotel?  is it divided equally between the staff?  Incidentally I am not picking on Shangri-la - I have stayed a few times at their hotels in China, and eaten meals in their restaurants, and I thought the service was great every time.  maybe the 15% works?

Posted on: Good Morning!

@seriously

That post really DESERVES an answer.  Good luck, seriously.  :-)